


excuse me, she asked for no pickles

by rpluslequalsj



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Post-Season/Series 03, canon-typical amount of crying, theyre working together and on the run, this sounds like a shitpost but i promise it's an actual story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24534952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rpluslequalsj/pseuds/rpluslequalsj
Summary: When Eve meets her, hair looking a little more disheveled than it did when they’d parted ways that morning, and her face splits into a big smile, Villanelle knows she made the right choice. When it comes to food, or Eve, or food and Eve, she always does.“Hey, Killer,” Villanelle greets, holding out a hand. It’s habitual, now, reaching for Eve.---Eve is craving burgers after a kill. They go to Shake Shack. It's super romantic.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 27
Kudos: 126





	excuse me, she asked for no pickles

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like one of those bots that was forced to watch 1000 hours of something and then write a script on it, except instead of a show it's the 500+ fics I've bookmarked over the years and instead of a script it's this fanfic. Very excited to finally have something to give back to this fandom and this pairing!

Killing, it turned out, makes Eve hungry.

The first time, it was funny. The second, it was coincidence. The third, it indicated a pattern. Villanelle had pointed it out first.

_“You like to eat.” Eve shot her a quizzical look at the non-sequitur.  
_

_“Who doesn’t?”_

_“No. After you kill. You always get," she held out a hand, as if willing for the correct word to come,"munchies."_

_“I...wow, yeah, you’re right.”_

_“It’s different for everyone. It made me want to go shopping.”_

_Eve snorted. “I could tell.”_

Villanelle counts the minutes that it takes, visualizing in her mind what Eve is doing based on the background noise that sneaks in through her earpiece.

And then, like clockwork, “ _I could eat a horse,”_ comes Eve's voice, crackling with static.

Villanelle is ready for it. When she’d woken up that morning craving pancakes, she’d started mentally planning their post-mission indulgence. She would take Eve to a diner-style restaurant and order a full stack crowned with a slab of butter and drenched in syr—

“ _A cow, actually. An entire cow’s worth of burgers.”_

—but Eve is craving fast food meat, so Villanelle says goodbye to her pancakes. _Goodbye, pancakes._ Seriously, the things she does for love.

“Do you have somewhere in mind?”

Eve sounds a little out-of-breath when she says, _“Surprise me.”_

Villanelle switches browser tabs, mournfully amends her search query from “best all-day breakfast in DC” to “best burger joint in DC,” and compares the ratings and their distances relative to the kill site, assuming Eve hasn’t deviated too much from the plan. She usually doesn’t. Eve is very precise. Settling on a choice, Villanelle opens another tab to ask google a question.

Affecting her public school teacher persona, she reads the answer. “‘At four ounces each, a cow can yield from, say about twelve hundred burgers, on up to well over two thousand.’”

Eve laughs. _“That’s a lot.”_ Villanelle hears her grunt, then the sound of...running water? She must be at the Potomac. Interesting. Well, the important thing is Eve is alive. She can ask questions during their debrief later.

_“Maybe just a quarter of a cow,” Eve amends._

“I found a place. You will like it.”

Shunning the myriad options of international cuisine available in this epicenter of American politics, Villanelle instead directs Eve, her darling, penny-pinching Eve, to a chain restaurant. She’d learned the hard way a year ago when she’d surprised Eve with a reservation at The French Laundry.

_It was not the reaction Villanelle expected. Okay, it was, but she hoped Eve was in a really good mood and would be receptive, considering what they’d successfully pulled off the evening before._

_Eve_ was _in a good mood, but not enough._

_“You can’t just piss away your money! We don’t know how long this is going to take. It could take years, it could take—it could take...Fuck, this could last decades.” Eve rubbed at her temples. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation. Argument? It wasn’t really an argument if she knew Eve was right. She couldn’t help herself. She liked giving Eve nice things. If they died, all her money would vanish from the world, aside from the two small accounts she had set up to regularly transfer money to Pyotr and Bor’ka. She might as well use it to make Eve happy._

_Villanelle shrugged. “It’s too late to cancel. That would just be rude.” She would keep it in mind for next time, though. Eve was really, really, really, really, really frugal. That was just one of the many items in the list of her good influences on Villanelle. So, after this, no more three-star Michelin reservations._

_One star, max._

_Eve still didn’t look convinced, so she tried again. “Come on. We will dress nice, eat good food until we feel fat and sleepy, and then we will come back here and slow dance.” She waggled her eyebrows for emphasis. “Super romantic.”_

_“Everything we do is romantic to you,” Eve said, not incorrectly, “but alright.” Good, because Villanelle had already made a playlist._

_Villanelle won, in the end, when Eve admitted after the first course that the food was delicious. She’d then proceeded to moan, obscenely, multiple times, during subsequent courses. Villanelle knew she did it partially out of genuine delight at the taste, but really, it was mostly to drive Villanelle mad, because Eve spent the next two hours of their dinner also sliding her heels up and down Villanelle’s calf. She’d succeeded: Villanelle pulled their car into a vineyard not five minutes after they left the restaurant. When she reached over to kiss Eve thoroughly, she could still taste the cappuccino semifreddo and coconut macarons of their last course on her lips._

Villanelle waits outside the Shake Shack. They’ve been apart less than six hours, but Villanelle misses Eve and her hair already, just like every other time they’ve done this. She worries about Eve, but she also trusts Eve’s big brain and instincts, so she mostly misses her. Reminiscing alleviates the void, but not enough. It never would. Villanelle thinks of how inconsolable she will be when Eve dies. Her eyes prickle at the thought. She thinks she would follow shortly.

When Eve meets her, hair looking a little more disheveled than it did when they’d parted ways that morning, and her face splits into a big smile, Villanelle knows she made the right choice. When it comes to food, or Eve, or food and Eve, she always does.

“Hey, Killer,” Villanelle greets, holding out a hand. It’s habitual, now, reaching for Eve.

“I haven’t had this stuff in...God, forever. I’m excited.” Eve intertwines their fingers, and they enter.

-

“A Shackburger and a Chick’n Shack, no pickles, with an extra side of fries and a salted caramel shake,” Eve rattles off as soon as it’s their turn. They got caught in the the lunch rush, so Eve’s had ten minutes in line to think about her order, and Villanelle has had ten minutes to listen to Eve’s stomach grumble. Poor baby.

Eve turns to her. “What about you?”

She looks up at the menu again, black panels with white text with far too many options hanging on the wall, and makes a show of pretending to consider her order one last time. But she’s just going to steal Eve’s fries, so, “Just a large strawberry shake for me.”

“Will that be for here or to go?” asks the cashier.

“To go, please.”

“All right, your total will be—”

“Wait,” Villanelle interrupts. “How much for a hat?” The workers are dressed in all black, save for the bright green lines of the minimalist burger logo embroidered on their hats and t-shirts. The cashier smiles regretfully.

“Sorry, we’ve been out of stock for a couple weeks. You can order them online for sixteen dollars, though.”

Eve pays with cash—they use cash only whenever possible these days—and the cashier hands Eve their pager. The line to order was long, and so will the wait for their food, so they have time to go outside. Villanelle plucks the pager from Eve’s hand. She sticks it in the pocket of her jacket for safekeeping.

Discreet is the name of their game these days, which meant that Villanelle had to exchange her designer pieces for department store off-the-rack, and Eve got the privilege of getting to dress exactly as she always did. It also killed two birds with one stone, because being on the run means they’re running solely off Villanelle’s stash of savings. Eve had savings to contribute too, but that source had dried up quickly. It was like comparing a drop of water to a bucketful. Eve’s words, not Villanelle’s—she appreciates all of Eve’s efforts and contributions to their relationship, thank you very much. Villanelle has enough money and investments stashed away in shell accounts around the world to support a multigenerational family on a generous plot of land for the next decade, but hotels and plane tickets rack up fast, and the amounts demanded by the people they bribe rack up even faster.

Villanelle still looks just as fantastic, though. Fabrics and patterns in a silhouette are important, but less so than properly fitting clothes. Most important of all is the canvas underneath, and Villanelle’s canvas is a beautiful one. So is Eve’s, and it’s an absolute crime how she hides it. Worse than killing, honestly.

Still, Villanelle had too much pride to allow herself to fall from the highest ends of fashion to the ground floor of Primark. She preserved her dignity in this compromise by stepping down from Saks Fifth to Saks Off Fifth. She will wear the rare Uniqlo piece, but only if circumstances are dire, and Eve asks nicely. It’s happened twice so far.

Today’s ensemble consists of sturdy black boots (Rule #28 of being an assassin, and also being a tourist: never compromise on good shoes. Villanelle had learned it the hard way—maybe one day she would pass along her wisdom, write the rules down in a handy guidebook for future aspiring contract killers), black jeans, and a band tee under a denim jacket. She looks like a stereotype, but a devastatingly fashionable one.

That morning, Eve, kneeling over her suitcase, had blindly thrown something behind her.

_“Wear that.” Villanelle picked it up with two fingers, her nose wrinkling to match the state of the fabric._

_“Who are the Bottlemen and who are they catfishing?”_

_“It’s a band. The shirt has good memories.” ‘with Bill,’ is what Villanelle assumed she left unsaid. Eve had told her what Bill was like, before, how they would get drinks after work and sing and dance together. She would never feel it completely, not like other people did, but Villanelle was slowly learning the meaning of regret.  
_

_“You have never worn this.”_

_“Try it on to see why.”_

_She sighed, long and loud, so that Eve would know how difficult this was for her. She shed the silk pajamas she’d worn to sleep and shuddered as she slipped on the offensive cotton-polyester blend. The shirt was tighter than she would have liked, too small for her, too small even for Eve, no doubt a result of shrinkage from countless cycles of washing and drying in Eve’s old London home, when she’d had a normal life, when Villanelle was yet to consume her every waking moment of every day._

_Villanelle divided her life into the distinct eras of Before Eve and After Eve, clearly separated by their first meeting in the bathroom. She’d known Eve before she’d known Eve’s name. She thought of Eve’s life in the same way, in two halves: Before Villanelle and After Villanelle, though the line of demarcation was fuzzier for Eve—she’d become obsessed with an assassin long before she could put a name or face to her. Villanelle was Eve’s future—Eve admitted as much. By wearing the t-shirt, a physical reminder of a fun night in Eve’s old life, Villanelle bridged the two halves. She was Eve’s past, present, and future. Eve was hers, too. She wished she had something old of hers to give to Eve, too, like her stupid prison bandana, or anything, but she didn’t, so she would just have to buy a ring._

_Villanelle wiped the dampness from her eyes, then looked in the mirror. She gasped._

_“Eve, look!”_

_“What? What happened?” Eve turned around, finally giving her full attention to Villanelle. The t-shirt, on Villanelle, was basically a skin-tight crop top, ending just above her hipbones._

_“It makes my tits look really good, huh?” Villanelle crossed her arms to emphasize the effect. Eve just rolled her eyes._

_“Your tits look good in everything,” she replied, as if it made the fact that Villanelle’s tits looked amazing right then any less significant._

_But then Eve smirked and said, “Why do you think I picked it out for you?” and Villanelle took the t-shirt off again to show her appreciation for Eve’s thoughtfulness, and then some._

Now Eve inspects her hands, looking underneath the nails for any remaining blood that has crusted.

Villanelle bumps her with her hip. “Stop worrying.”

“I’m just being thorough.”

“You are the thoroughest,” Villanelle reassures. And Eve is. Training the body for the rigors of killing at the age of forty is an infinitely greater beast than training the body at twenty, but Eve’s greatest asset is her mind. Hers is knife sharp, sharper, even, and what they’re doing calls more for that than it does brute force. “Plus, you have an excellent handler. They say you two are the best in the business.”

The business in question being the business of taking down an international crime organization. As far as Villanelle knows, no one else is doing it, so, technically, it’s the truth. It would make things a lot easier, though, if they _were_ competing against other teams to kill The Twelve. Like The Amazing Race, but with an extra step. She thinks she and Eve would definitely win both.

“Did you come here often, when you were young and wild?” Villanelle asks. Eve snorts. They’ve had the last year to dig deep into the trenches of each other, and they are digging deeper still. Eve has told Villanelle about her childhood and early adulthood, about her parents, about her college days. It had been _very_ enlightening.

“A few times for school trips, seat of political power and all. And we were a feeder school for Yale, so.”

Villanelle’s brows come together. “Feeder school?” Eve smiles at the language barrier.

“It means we sent a disproportionately high number of people to a prestigious university every year. Not including me, obviously.”

Villanelle is suddenly overcome with the desire to see Eve’s childhood home. Hearing about something is one thing. Seeing it for herself is another. Connecticut is not too far from here, relatively speaking, considering the other places she and Eve have been. The next legs of their journey has them going to the other side of the world. This could be their last chance for a while, or ever.

Villanelle feels the pager go off, a sudden incessant buzzing against her side.

“Our order is ready. Wait here.”

Eve is sitting on the curb when Villanelle returns, a plastic bag in one hand and a cup holder tray in the other.

“Did you want some of my fries?” Eve asks wryly at the sight of the three already poking out of Villanelle’s mouth. Villanelle sits, scoots close to Eve so that their sides are smooshed together.

“Open your mouth,” Villanelle says. Eve obliges without question, though her brow wrinkles, and then, in answer, Villanelle feeds her a fry. Villanelle wonders if the passerby who look at them are jealous of the two lovebirds sitting on the street. They should be. She takes the shake, her single item in their order, steals another handful of fries, then passes the rest to Eve. She takes a slurp, makes it as noisy as possible. It’s surprisingly good—almost good enough to make up for her pancakes.

“Dammit!”

“What?”

“There’s pickles in my Chick’n Shack,” Eve sighs.

Villanelle takes the sandwich in its box from Eve’s disappointed hands. “Get started on your other burger and watch my shake.”

“Wait, no, it’s fine.”

“Eve,” Villanelle says, her tone final. “You were amazing today. The least you deserve is a good lunch.” She kisses her. When they part, Eve eyes soften.

“You taste like salt and strawberries,” she murmurs. But still, Eve holds firm. “They make minimum wage. Seriously, Villanelle, it’s fine, I’ll just—” but Villanelle has already stood up and headed back for the restaurant.

She weaves expertly around the mix of bodies for the second time, making her way to the counter.

“Hey,” she waves, trying to catch the attention of a burger-hat person. A fry cook, or anyone, or something. She gets nothing.

During her assassin days, which now seem a lifetime ago, dressing to blend in was fun. Her disguises were breaks from being Villanelle, her little dalliances with normalcy. Now there is no distinction between being on- and off-duty. She’s always on alert, always measuring her and Eve’s surroundings. Their lives depend on their ability to disappear into a crowd, and it’s annoying. Old Villanelle would have walked in in a sharply cut blazer in a fun pattern, some really cool pants, and nice shoes. The crowd would have parted for her like Moses parted the Red Sea.

Then again, old Villanelle probably would not have chosen to go to Shake Shack.

“Hey!” She tries again, to no avail. It is getting really, really annoying.

“Villanelle—”

“HEY!” She snarls, exactly like how she did to catch the attention of another American in Scotland a long time ago. It works. She finally she gets the attention of a worker. All of them, actually. And a lot of the other patrons. Everyone is looking at her now.

It’s kind of nice. She’s missed the attention.

“Oh my god,” Eve says beside her, but still takes Villanelle’s outreached hand.

“Excuse me,” Villanelle greets in an RP accent, smiling cheerily. “This... Chick’n Shack,” she raises and lowers the arm holding the item in question, “has pickles. She,” Villanelle raises their joined hands as Eve covers her face, “asked for no pickles. So if you could just,” she slides the sandwich across the counter, “get this fixed, that would be lovely, thank you so much.”

She watches the burger-hat people exchange glances.

“Uh, okay. Just a second,” one of them, a teenager, says, stepping up to the plate. Villanelle thinks he could get promoted if he keeps displaying leadership qualities like this. He could have a bright future in this organization. He runs off, literally, and comes back with a new sandwich. Villanelle, whose trust in Shake Shack has been damaged already, double-checks it to make sure they didn’t make the same mistake twice. Satisfied, she hands it to Eve. The teenager turns around to go back to work.

“Wait.” Villanelle pulls out one of the three wallets she keeps on her person. She makes him an offer he can’t refuse. She slides a fifty-dollar bill halfway across the counter. “I want to buy your hat.”

“Sure,” he says without hesitation, surrendering the mandatory component of his uniform immediately. Villanelle reconsiders him. Willingness to sell out to the highest bidder? Not someone you want to work with. Villanelle would know. She got _a lot_ of experience with toxic workplaces in her old job.

Villanelle takes the hat and takes back her money.

“I’m _so_ sorry, but I’ve changed my mind. My girlfriend is deathly allergic to pickles. She could have died because of your carelessness! That's almost unforgivable!” She frowns ruefully. “So I’ll just... take this, instead of calling my lawyer. Does that work? It’s a better alternative to getting sued, right?”

“Let’s go, Eve.” They make their way to the door. Villanelle hears something like, “Fucking Brits,” behind them, but she's too busy smiling at Eve’s shaking shoulders against her to care.

“That was mean, you asshole.” She likes it when Eve calls her an asshole now. There is no malice in it, only affection.

“You are literally laughing right now.”

“It was mean and funny.”

Outside, Villanelle puts on her prize.

“How do I look?” she inquires, turning her head side to side for inspection.

“Beautiful,” Eve says, bringing fries to Villanelle’s lips. She gladly accepts. “Well, we’ve got time to kill. Wannna go to the National Portrait Gallery? You can make fun of all our presidents.”

Museums are boring, but not with Eve.

“Yeah. Sounds fun.”

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell I love how V loves Eve?
> 
> I've proofread this literally 10+ times but I also kept adding stuff while proofreading, so if you see mistakes, please forgive me. Switching between past and present tense was a bad idea, but I was already in too deep.
> 
> Bonus points if you can figure out which Shake Shack they went to! 
> 
> I'm @she_rough on twitter if you want to chat about these two ladies.


End file.
